A choose is permitting CBS to proceed to distribute “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune,” dealing a setback to Sony Footage Tv’s efforts to sever ties with its longtime accomplice.
Los Angeles County Superior Courtroom Decide Kevin C. Brazile late Wednesday granted CBS’ request for a brief restraining order. His order blocks Sony from bypassing CBS by sending new episodes of the favored packages on to tv stations that air them.
Sony owns and produces the worthwhile recreation reveals. The , alleging breach of contract. It escalated the , saying that it could now not provide new episodes of the reveals to CBS. Sony stated it could ship subsequent week’s batch of episodes to TV stations across the nation.
CBS cried foul, saying Sony couldn’t unilaterally finish the longtime distribution deal between the 2 firms.
The defunct King World Productions syndication agency, which CBS acquired in 1999, had struck offers with the unique producer, Merv Griffin Enterprises, within the early Eighties to distribute “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune.” Sony later acquired Griffin’s firm, however these early agreements stay in impact.
“We’re happy the courtroom issued a brief restraining order in opposition to Sony’s illegal actions,” CBS Media Ventures stated Thursday in an announcement. “We’ll proceed to seamlessly distribute Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! to our station shoppers like now we have for over 40 years.”
Sony Footage Tv, in an announcement, famous that Brazile’s non permanent restraining order was not the ultimate decision.
“In gentle of CBS’s steady failure to reside as much as its contractual obligations, SPT believes it has lawfully terminated the distribution agreements with CBS for the reveals and accordingly assumed all international distribution features,” the corporate stated in an announcement.
Brazile scheduled a Feb. 18 standing convention for an replace on the authorized dispute.
In its lawsuit final 12 months, Sony claimed that CBS entered into unauthorized licensing offers for the reveals in Australia and New Zealand and paid itself a fee on these offers. Sony additionally alleged that CBS licensed the reveals at below-market charges and failed to maximise promoting revenues.
Sony complained {that a} separate months-long dispute between CBS and rankings agency Nielsen had denied CBS-distributed reveals with viewers data that might display to advertisers the power of the reveals. CBS and Nielsen agreed on a brand new contract this week, authorizing CBS reveals to obtain the rankings.
Sony additionally alleged that widespread layoffs at CBS had “decimated” the crew devoted to supporting “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune.”
These price cuts pressured Sony to step in to carry out key features, together with dealing with contract negotiations with main TV station teams to safe distribution of the reveals, Sony stated in its lawsuit.
Sony “will proceed to battle CBS’s egregious mishandling of those beloved reveals and can take all mandatory authorized actions to guard our rights,” the corporate stated in a Thursday assertion.
CBS, in its countercomplaint final fall, alleged that Sony was motivated to chop the community out of a profitable deal.
Sony had tried to purchase again distribution rights to the 2 packages, however when that effort stalled, Sony started on the lookout for different methods to exert management, CBS alleged in its go well with.
CBS’ father or mother, Paramount, has confronted monetary struggles for a number of years.
Final summer time, tech scion David Ellison and his household agreed to buy Shari Redstone’s household’s controlling stake in Paramount. to take over Paramount and mix it together with his Skydance Media manufacturing firm.
Paramount and Skydance executives are hoping that deal closes this spring.
